


The Colours That You Took

by ImWithEnjolras



Series: I am yours in this life, and I will be yours in the next and every life thereafter. [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Reincarnation AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-24 21:39:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12021552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImWithEnjolras/pseuds/ImWithEnjolras
Summary: Ten years of grief - of pain, of anger, of tears, of hurt, of loss - goes by excruciatingly slow. The monotony and colourlessness of it all numbs Yuri Plisetsky to the core. Every motion he makes is listless, he is but an echo of who he once was.This is where it all ended.This is where they begin again.





	The Colours That You Took

It hurts.

It stings. It squeezes the heart. It rips apart the very soul.

Grief.

Nothing can fix it. Nothing can soothe the pain it brings.

Nothing can fill the gaping hole it leaves behind.

You can try.

_ God _ , do you try.

Stitch your heart back together. Cover up the holes. Curse and pray and dream and hope.

But still it rips. It tears. It cuts.

It hurts.

Grief.

It’s there. It festers.

It hurts.

 

* * *

 

At first it was denial. Yuri would come home, call  _ his _ name and only have their seal point ragdoll come padding up to him in response. He’d search the house, high and low, Potya by his side in his search. In his mind, it registers that  _ he’s _ probably still out, meeting a couple of their sponsors to discuss the upcoming season, but he’ll be home soon - he texted that he would be.

_ He _ has plans to retire in a season - two at most.  _ He’s  _ been on the ice for over a decade and figures it’s about time.

_ He’s _ retiring.

Jean’s reti---

Jean’s dead.

Reality hits him like a freight train. Jean’s not at a meeting with their sponsors; Jean’s not even on his way home. Jean is never coming home because Jean is dead.

Yuri tucks himself into their bed. 

Jean’s smell is disappearing.

He screams into Jean’s pillow.

_ Dead. _

_ Jean’s not dead! _

_ He can’t be dead. _

_ He promised. _

_ Jean’s not dead! _

 

* * *

 

 

Anger is a familiar emotion to Yuri. It curls red hot and furious in his veins. For a long time, he had put away the rage of his youth, finding no use for it in the relative calm and brightness in his life with Jean.

But then that light is ripped from his hands without any warning.

He didn’t even get to tell Jean he loved him, one last time.

Didn’t even get to say goodbye.

The target of his anger is easy. That god in the clouds, far in the sky with his kingdom of peace and marble and eternal joy.

The visual alone is eternal damnation to Yuri. How come god gets to have peace and joy up there, so far away, when he took away the one person Yuri loves as much as he did his grandfather?

It was an accident. Heavy rains and winds sent Jean’s car into an uncontrollable tailspin. The doctors had told him that the car had flipped several times; it had crushed Jean’s legs and trapped him between his seat and the steering wheel. He had been conscious the whole time. Yuri could barely imagine how Jean had felt in those moments.

Yuri remembers collapsing to his knees. How would Jean skate? How could Jean compete? How could they climb the podium together.

_ Mr. Plisetsky… _

_ Sir… _

_ Is there anyone else we should call? _

Why?

_ Mr. Plisetsky...I’m...I’m sorry… _

No.

But they…

No!

They…

_ I’m sorry, Mr. Plisetsky. We did all we could. He’s alive, but...the chances of him waking up aren’t very high. _

They couldn’t save him.

They couldn’t save Jean.

His Jean.

And then he became furious.

He screamed at the doctors. At anyone who came too close to him. Crumbling into himself and exploding at those approaching him all in one terrible, burning supernova.

When the target of his rage finally becomes Jean, he’s tugging all of Jean’s clothes off the hangers. He throws them onto the floor, screams tearing from his throat and hot tears running down his cheeks. He collapses to his knees, burying his face into Jean’s clothes, fingers digging into the fabrics.

They smell like him.

_ Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!  _

_ I hate you! _

_ How dare you leave me! _

_ You promised! _

_ Fuck you!  _

The anger lingers.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever stop being mad at the god that took his Jean away from him. No matter how much his Jean believed in him.

 

* * *

 

Once all the tubes and the machines are removed and shut-off, Jean looks no different than from when asleep. But the stillness of his chest brings the frigid reality down upon Yuri.

He begs and begs and begs.

To Jean. To god. To anyone listening.

Old Russian prayers his grandfather had taught him a lifetime ago fall from his tongue.

Rusty. Unused. Familiar.

_ Please, _ he begs,  _ I know I’ve asked for a lot, but, please, just give him back. Give him back to me. I’ll do anything! _

Yuri presses his face into Jean’s neck; Jean’s body is still warm but Yuri couldn’t feel a single heartbeat beneath his palms. The rest of his body follows, lying beside Jean’s still form.

“Wake up,” his voice cracks; Jean smells of antiseptic and nothing of himself. Yuri hates it. “ _ Please _ , wake up. Jean. Please don’t leave me.”

Yuri would trade anything to get Jean back. To see his smile, hear his voice, joke and laugh and love together. 

“Please, baby. C’mon,” he sobs, his hold on Jean tightening. “Open your eyes. I’ll do anything.  _ Please _ .” 

Silence.

“Wake up, please.” He cries louder once Nathalie and Alain come to bring him home. 

_ Let me take his place. I’ll take his place just please bring him back. _

Only silence.

 

* * *

 

Yuri buries himself into their bed after the funeral. His bed. Their bed. His bed. Whose bed is it even any more?

Their bed.

He refuses to let Jean go.

Yuri stares, unseeingly, at the wall - just beneath one of those ostentatious photoshoot photos that Jean had been so insistent on. In the photo, he’s smiling so brightly into the camera, arms wrapped, just offscreen, around Jean’s middle. It hurts to look at the Jean in that photo - one hand buried in Yuri’s blond tresses, gazing so softly and fondly at Yuri.

Did Jean always look at him like that? Did Jean know that Yuri loves him more than anything on earth?

It makes him want to puke.

He hates looking at it. It reminds him of all he had, of all he could have had. It reminds him of happiness, of cold evenings wrapped in Jean’s arms, of summer houseboating on Lake Shuswap.

Of Jean.

He hates it. He hates how everything reminds of him of Jean.

But he would never do anything to put those memories away.

These memories are all he has left. And he fears the day he starts forgetting what Jean smelled like, how he smiled, how he looked. He knows it’s inevitable - his mother is only a fuzzy figure in his memories, the smell of rosewater and vanilla the only things, so many years after her death,  sparking any sort of remembrance of her. He can barely remember what she sounded like, and no force on earth could help him recall what his mother looked like. All he had left of her was her smell.

He doesn’t want that for Jean. 

Yuri wants every memory, every moment, so deeply burned into his memory, it becomes a part of him. Jean’s smile, his smell, the glow of his skin in the morning sun - he makes a selfish promise to claw into these memories and jealously guard it from the monster that is time and forgetfulness. 

So he locks himself away, from the friends and family who have stuck around and tried so hard to get Yuri out of their home - out of their bedroom. 

Their home. Their bedroom. His home. His bedroom.

Which is it any more?

He keeps himself away, buries himself in his memories of Jean. In these memories where he is still happy, where Jean is still alive. Who cares about reality? Reality is cruel and ugly and reality doesn’t have Jean.

He eyes the now empty bottle of vodka, rolling on the floor by the nightstand.

He won’t forget Jean.

But maybe he can make himself forget that Jean is dead.

It’s worked for a little bit. Maybe Yuri can force it to work for a little more.

 

* * *

 

Yuri wakes to Nathalie sitting beside him on the bed. The headache he has thuds against his skull. Every day has been the same routine for him.

Wake up.

Run.

Pick up another bottle of vodka.

Run home.

Remember Jean.

Pass out.

Dream that none of this happened to him.

Repeat.

But today, Nathalie is here. He hasn’t seen her since the funeral. It’s been months. Something deep and regretful digs around in his gut. 

“I’m so s--”

“It’s been hard,” she says softly; Yuri’s heart clenches at how familiar the expression on her face is. She tucks some strands of his hair behind his ear. “I can only imagine how you’ve been feeling all alone here. With these memories.”

“I…” His eyes fill with tears, frantically grasping her hand before she pulls away completely. “Everyone keeps telling me to move on...to forget...but I can’t. How can I?”

The smile on Nathalie’s face is heartbreaking. “You know...a lot of our friends are telling Alain and I to do the same…” She gently squeezes his hand. “But how can anyone ask a mother to forget her son? A father to forget his boy? I say, fuck them.” Yuri can feel the tears falling down his face. “Move forward, but don’t forget. He’s gone, but just for a moment, right?”

Yuri scrambles forward into Nathalie’s open arms, sobbing into her chest as she runs her fingers through his hair. He lets go, lets the tears fall and his sobs echo through the bedroom. Nathalie gently soothes him, rocking him gently as if he were a child again.  
  


* * *

 

 

Ten years of grief - of pain, of anger, of tears, of hurt, of loss - goes by excruciatingly slow. The monotony and colourlessness of it all numbs Yuri Plisetsky to the core. Every motion he makes is listless, he is but an echo of who he once was. 

What does he have left on this grey, grey world? Nothing but grey. Nothing but memories.

Everyone he loved six feet under the cold, grey ground.

Jean believes -  _ believed, believed, believed, past tense _ \- in a life after death. Yuri was and still is skeptical about it. His grandfather believed in it too. ( _ But everyone he ever loved is cold and dead and six feet under.) _

But Yuri was and always will be a selfish, selfish man and if Jean is waiting for him in a life after death, then Yuri will get back to Jean, so help him god.

If waiting is all it takes to be held in Jean’s arms again, he'll do it. Come hell or high water, he’ll wait. 

He thought about it once. Going home. But Russia has long since stopped being his home. And why would he go back to that place, with it’s frigid and unforgiving winters? The Russia he remembers is grey - buildings, skies, streets, people. Everything was grey.

Montreal had quickly become his new home after he had immigrated to Canada with his grandfather. The city was as vibrant and lively and colourful as the man Yuri had fallen in love with. It wasn’t difficult to make a home here with Jean.

Ten years of grief, however, have made Montreal grey too. 

Colour is a faraway memory; it’s a memory of deep, blue eyes, of fiery reds, or blindingly bright white smiles, of running his fingers through soft, black hair.

But when Jean had died, he had taken colour with him.

Colour and Yuri’s love, all in one casket six feet under the grounds of a cemetery in Montreal. 

 

* * *

 

 

Eventually, Yuri had learned to accept things - accept that life was only ever going to be dull, that he had loved a man who took Yuri’s heart with him to his grave. 

Accept that Jean was gone.

That Jean was dead.

It’s a long and tiring and repetitive process; one he still struggles with daily. He still searches for that touch of vibrancy and colour that Jean had brought to him. Sometimes he still calls Jean for dinner or rushes to make two lunches instead of just the one for himself. At night, he dreams about what could have been, what he could have had, and he always tries to linger. He tries to tether himself to those dreams and how he wishes to stay there forever instead of returning to the nightmare that is his reality. 

But eventually he has to wake up.

And it sucks. 

He hates it.

But he tries again - because he’s too stubborn to give up and he knows that if Jean were alive he’d be making fun of him and challenging him to give it a shot anyway. So he does.

It’s tiring and repetitive and annoying. But he does it anyway. Because Jean would want him to at least try. 

So he tries.

He started coaching a couple years back. He has two kids just about ready to branch into the seniors. It’s calming for him - the ice is familiar, if a little bittersweet to be on. Coaching takes up most of his time so his heart aches a little less since his mind isn’t always trying to get back to Jean.

But some days, he just wants to be back in that familiar embrace. Yuri wants to get lost in that warmth and love like he did over two decades ago. But…

Jean’s dead.

The closest thing he can get to that feeling is being out here. In this random glade that he and Jean had found on the Leroy family’s huge acreage. Undisturbed, complete with a babbling brook and softly swaying grass. It’s a place right out of Yuri’s Russian fairy dreams.

So he likes to come here.

Because it’s theirs.

But...

“Who in the fuck are you?” A far away voice in his conscience reprimands his cursing.  _ He’s just a boy _ . It says, the familiar and warm lilt digging painful claws into what’s left of his heart. Yuri punches that warmth back into whatever box it had snuck out from.

Yuri had come here to get some quiet. He had come to the last place where he could still feel colour - because he could forget here, he could pretend here. There was no loss here; this field - this space - untouched by the hurt and fear and pain that oversaturated the world he has to live in. He came here to forget. He came here to remember. In this peaceful place, a place that was thei--------

His.

This place was his.

It was only his now.

The boy only looks at him with a look too gentle and patient for Yuri at the moment. It’s almost familiar and Yuri’s heart feels like it’s lodged in his throat. Yuri sneers at the boy, swallowing down whatever feelings that were threatening to come out.

He’s not supposed to be here.

No one’s supposed to be here.

And yet there he is; a boy just standing there, in a place he has no business - no right - to be in. Yuri’s face twists into an uglier snarl, stepping forward to the boy. Yuri’s vision is drenched in red. What is this boy doing here?! What is this boy doing in the place that Yuri holds dear?! What is he doing in the last place that still so pristinely holds Yuri’s memory of Jean?!

Those broad shoulders.

That bright grin.

Blue eyes.

Dark hair.

Gentle hands.

Jean.

His Jean.

_ “Yuri.” _

Like a wave, Yuri’s anger stalls. “How…” Yuri’s hands shake by his side, frozen midstep. “How do you know my name?”

His voice is barely a whisper. The boy is a hazy blur in his now misty gaze. 

“I-I…” The boy stammers, but he doesn’t look half as frantic as Yuri wants him to be. “You’re not going to believe me.”

“Try me,” Yuri glares.

The boy takes a shuddering intake of breath, closing his eyes to gather himself and the image is so familiar it lodges Yuri’s breath firmly in his throat.

“I…” The boy’s eyes are just as blue; his hair is just as black. Just a kid, but everything is almost exactly the same. “I remember you didn’t believe in life after death or in reincarnation, but--”

“You can’t…” Yuri whispers, but the boy looks back at him with a fondness and patience in his eyes that Yuri is familiar with, but has long forgotten. “JJ’s...JJ’s dead! I...I buried h-him! Th-This is a really fucked up prank, kid!”

The boy immediately holds his hands up, palms facing Yuri, a frantic expression on his face and Yuri feels his heart leap at the familiarity of it all. He’s just a kid - just some random boy he’s never met

“I--No! It’s not a prank!” The boy waves his hands in front of his chest. “That’s too cruel! I could never do something so mean to my Prima!”   
  
Everything comes to a screeching halt.   
  
“What...did you just fucking call me?” Yuri approaches the boy, emotions a mix of enraged, curious, and a touch of apprehensive hope. “How...How the fuck do you know that?”   
  
“I would never lie to you.” The boy lifts a hand as if to touch Yuri, but he brings it back down. “I could never lie to you, my Prima.”   
  
Yuri’s voice gets stuck in his throat and he falls to his knees in front of the boy. This can’t be.   
  
“JJ? ….Jean?”

**Author's Note:**

> SO, YES. THIS IS FOR THE YOI SHITBANG. BUT IT'S EXCRUCIATINGLY LATE AND VERY MUCH THE FIRST PART OF A STILL INCOMPLETE SERIES.
> 
> I will work my butt off to get it done as soon as I can!
> 
> In the meantime, please leave a comment, if you'd like!


End file.
